A little more than eight years ago, I began working at a unique little college nestled in the Swannanoa Valley in Western North Carolina. Surrounded by mountains, equipped with a full working farm, and populated by students who came to the place knowing full well that their education was going to necessarily include fifteen hours each week devoted to keeping the operations of the college going, in every facet from office work to heavy-duty landscaping to cleaning floors and toilets. I’d come from an institution of higher learning with a fair number of enrollees who were just checking boxes in … Continue reading One for Friday: Dan Rousseau, “Good Morning Swannanoa”

When I was a teenager, just starting to hone my musical taste into something respectable, I wanted to believe in a local music scene. As I read through my biweekly subscription copies of Rolling Stone with the sort of intense scrutiny others save for the Bible, I became enamored with any write-up about a town that was exploding with an influx of great new bands that were garnering national attention. The mixture of civic pride and being ahead of the curve was potently appealing to me for reasons I still can’t quite identify. Of course, I couldn’t truly take advantage … Continue reading One for Friday: Fire Town, “Turn To Me”